At most any given field day one of the hottest topics for growers is resistant weed management, no matter the crop. Dr. Alan York, Professor Emeritus at NC State Crop Science Dept. will be one of the presenters at the 2012 Cotton Field Day at the Cotton Research Station near Rocky Mount, and he and his grad student have several plots addressing just that:

“One of the concerns that a lot of weed scientists have is that we are using a lot of PPO inhibitors. One of the projects we have going is to try to get rid of one of them and what can we replace it with? What we have to choose from, for the residual preplants, the main two are going to be valor and diuron.”

York will also be presenting research on Bayer’s Liberty Link system:

“We are doing some work with the new Glycol Liberty Link Cotton, its Bayer’s contribution where the Glycol is the equivalent to Round Up Ready, but it’s a totally different mechanism with tolerance. We have some work on this and so far its looking good.”

And some products York will be presenting haven’t been labeled yet:

“BASF is going to sell it under the trade name Zidua, and they don’t have any labels yet, but it’s a pre-emergence material with a lot of similarities to Duel. It looks good on pigweed. The bottom line is it’s looking too hot to use on cotton.

There will also be a trial demonstrating Monsanto’s Warrant herbicide in action:

“We know that the active ingredient in a non encapsulated form is tough on cotton, but in a capsulated formulation where it breaks down and releases it slower, there is tolerance for it. We have done some work and it looks like Warrant is relatively safe on cotton. We may be able to replace one of the PPOs with Warrant.”

And stewardship is also part of the program when it comes to resistant weeds; taking care of what we have, according to York:

“That’s part of the stewardship too, not only just off target movement but a resistance management program and use of these things so we don’t screw them up like we did the last time.”

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